I shaded in the lines

with ink that’s permanent,

so my boundaries

aren’t misunderstood,

assumed by you,

or bent.

I love you.

Wait... thats not true.

I hate you.

I hate that you manipulated me. I hate that you always smiled when you saw me, I hate that I skipped out on family time to see you. I hate the way your eyes lit up when I asked you something. I hate the way your hands felt in my hair. I hate that I needed you. I hate that I let you use me.

I wish I never met you in school. I wish I had listened when others said you were a terrible person.

I hate that you still have power over me. I hate that I see you everyday.

I hate that I love you while im with someone else.

I Hate You.

I have never in life met a person I could not find even one good thing to say - until I met Her. I'll call her Kay. Kay wasn't nice. She wasn't pretty, or funny, or smart, or talented in any way. The only way I could say something remotely decent about her is to start with "maybe she doesn't..." Like "maybe she doesn't kill cats in her spare time" or "maybe she doesn't make babies cry." But with a face like hers, she probably did.

Kay dated my husband's best friend (we'll call him Jay), off and on, for years. Every time we met, Kay had that same sour look on her face. She didn't talk, didn't smile. She did this to everyone, even Jay. None of us understood why Jay was still with her. He would just say there was something about her that no one else saw.

Anyway, my then-boyfriend (now husband) proposed to me, and we shared the news with Jay, who was to be the best man. Jay came up to us a few days later and said how Kay had never been to a wedding and she always wanted to go. I told my then-boyfriend no. Kay was the only one I had ever banned from my wedding. I did not want that negative energy on our special day. But since Jay's car was acting up and he relied on Kay, I relented. What followed is the biggest "I-told-you-so" moment I ever had.

The day of the wedding. The minutes are ticking away, the ceremony soon to begin. No Jay, no Kay. The wedding starts. Vows are made, songs are sung, we kissed as husband and wife. No Jay, no Kay. Five minutes after it was all said and done, Jay enters the venue, fuming, with a sulking Kay bringing up the rear. Their reason for being late? Kay "took too long in the bathroom." Kay kept her surly expression throughout the reception. They argued on the way home. Jay pulled over. Kay pushed him into oncoming traffic. The car swerves, Jay survives. This is still not enough for Jay to finally leave this hateful woman.

Years pass; kids enter the picture. We meet up with Jay and Kay again. This time, she does speak - under her breath, she says hateful things about my kids. I wasn't told this until after we left. I had had enough. I opened my laptop, logged onto Facebook, and politely messaged Kay that what she did was unacceptable.

She came back with a snarky response. I said, "Lord, what should I do?" I got the feeling that I should stay respectful, so I followed up with a polite response. This time, her message was more hateful. I continued, "Lord, did you see that? I was nice, and she was evil." After another below-the-belt response from Kay, I lifted up one more prayer. "Lord, I'm gonna need to ask for forgiveness instead of permission for this one, because she's asking for it." I unloaded five years worth of pent-up frustration and birthed a letter so divinely profane and disrespectful that in our circle of friends, it is spoken of as legend to this day. I then blocked her and Jay from responding. I'm told the truths I laid bare in that letter led to their breakup. If so, all the better.

So if I've ever despised anyone in life, it would be her. And Kay, if you ever read this and recognize yourself, I meant those words a thousand times over. I hope one day you take all the money you have and use it to buy a heart to cover up that cold, soulless void in your chest. For me, I'm good. I don't hate you anymore - because I don't think about you. Best of luck to you and may our paths never cross again.

I hate you,

Like I've never hated anyone before.

Thinking of you fills me with rage.

Why did you have to destroy my life?

At one time we used to be friends.

Then you cut me out,

Went after my friend group,

Who I introduced you to,

And got them to cut me out, too.

You were the one who stood up in their weddings.

Not me.

There was one that I was not even invited to.

All because of your toxicity,

Your irrational hate.

You say I was your friend,

But friends don't behave like you do.

I once thought of you warmly.

But now my hatred of you for ruining my life burns my soul.

You have hurt me in ways I could never have foreseen. It's amazing how I have my father and both grandfathers and several uncles, yet every man I am with has to live in your shadow. Every guy is going to be abusive or cheat or just be a tool, and now I am forever paranoid and torturing men with endless tests to ensure they aren't you. Even though all of you have left at some point in time, you have left scars on me that only come out whenever I am most vulnerable. I'm suffocating men in scar tissue while you continue to go around making more. Killing more little girls' views of me. And I would just like you all to know that I hope you are at least getting better.

I used to hate you when I was small, and now I understand you. I have created a few of you, men who like someone than got shat on and turned cold. I decided to stop after awhile, in some drunken attempt to not make more men cry, and a part of me hopes you have found someone to nurture you instead of hurt you. Someone who tries to finally cast your hurt so that it heals. But a larger part of me doesn't care what you do. A larger fraction of me remembers you well, remembers how you treated the women in my life and how they hurt over you, and that fraction reminds me that everything I do to protect myself is warranted. One misstep and one of you will be in my bed, and I realized when I was small that I cannot have that.